ITALY. LETTER I. 9 



about two or three hundred fathoms. The dip- 

 ping of this rich flat- work is variable, and often 

 irregular. The perpendicular depth of the prin- 

 cipal mafts is about one hundred fathoms. I for- 

 bear to fpeak of the ores to be found here, becaufe 

 you have them in your colle&ion, having been 

 befides defcribed already by Mr. Scopoli, in his 

 treatife de Hydrargyro Idrienjl. I have but a 

 fingle remark, and that is, that I have feen the 

 halotrictrum of Mr. Scopoli, adherent to the fides of 

 the mines, and fairly reddened by cinnabar. They 

 confider here their common melting and uftula- 

 tion of the mercurial-ores as an arcanum, and ac- 

 cordingly do not allow any ftranger to examine 

 their fublimation-houfe, though even its exterior 

 form undoubtedly, and at firft fight, proves their 

 method being the very fame as that which is ufed 

 at Almaden in Spain; and has been very minutely de- 

 fcribed by Mr. Jujfieu, in the memoires of the 

 royal fociety at Paris. This method is far from 

 being perfect, and above any improvements. But 

 probably they do not think fo ; elfe there could be 

 no poffible reafon for their myftery in fo com- 

 mon a manipulation. Nothing is more oppofite 

 to the progrefs of the fciences, and even to the in- 

 tereft of ftates, than fo fingular a myfterioufnefs. 

 The example of the French Academy, pub- 

 lifhing the, till now unknown, manipulations of 

 Artifts and Manufacturers, Ihould be to other 



nations 



